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This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.
This September, a new elementary school is set to open in the South Bronx that will operate year-round, seven days a week and 12 hours a day to accommodate working parents, but the state teachers union is suing to block it.
Strive Charter School was proposed by Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academy, the state’s largest charter school network, and her husband Eric Grannis. The union contends that opening it would violate a state law that limits the number of charter schools statewide; Moskowitz and Grannis argue it would instead be transforming an existing charter school.
The dispute is the latest salvo in a long-running battle in Albany over who should approve and regulate charter schools: the legislature-elected Board of Regents, which is housed under the state education agency, or the governor-appointed State University of New York trustees.
State law allows both bodies to approve new charter schools, but it also gives SUNY the power to overrule objections by the Board of Regents — as it did with Strive.
SUNY approved the Bronx school even though state education officials warned it could violate state law and recommended abandoning the project. A New York Focus analysis of state charter school decisions found that since 2017, the Board of Regents has rejected 58 SUNY-approved charter actions. In at least 51 of those cases, SUNY resubmitted the application without making any modifications, permitting dozens of charter schools to open, expand, relocate, merge, or receive early renewal against the guidance of the state’s top education policymaking body.
To advocates for traditional public schools, including teachers unions, that discrepancy indicates that SUNY simply rubber-stamps charter school proposals, even those that the state education officials find lacking.
Charter school proponents say the system is working as intended. “It’s a feature, not a bug,” wrote Grannis, Strive’s executive director, in an op-ed for the New York Post about the lawsuit.
Funding caps and the core charter debate
Charter schools, funded with tax dollars but run by independent organizations, have been the source of fierce debate since New York enacted its first charter school law in 1998.
New York law requires school districts to pay charter schools for every local student enrolled — on average, about $16,600 per student — which decreases the budget available for traditional schools. Public school districts also pay for charter school transportation, along with health and welfare services. This past school year, for example, Buffalo Public Schools budgeted $195 million for payments to 22 area charter schools educating over 10,000 local students.
State law limits the number of charters to maintain quality control, to manage the financial burden on local school districts, and to allow public school administrators to have some predictability in their budgets.
Proponents see charter schools as a free, high-quality alternative to low-performing schools, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. But opponents say they drain resources from traditional public schools without the same level of oversight and accountability as public schools.
Teachers unions have traditionally opposed charter schools because they are not typically unionized and receive public funding while operating under different rules than traditional public school districts, with greater autonomy over staffing and governance. In New York, the teachers union has opposed efforts to lift the state’s charter cap, while pushing for bills to tighten oversight, increase transparency, require community engagement, and ultimately eliminate SUNY’s charter-authorizing power.
The conflict between SUNY and the Board of Regents is an extension of that debate. Under state law, proposals for charter schools may be submitted to either the Board of Regents or SUNY. The Board of Regents must review charter proposals submitted to SUNY, but SUNY has the final word on whether they are approved. Of the roughly 352 operating charter schools statewide, 220 were authorized by SUNY, while 92 were authorized by the Board of Regents. (The remaining were granted by NYC DOE or the Buffalo Board of Education.)
Under state law, New York City is at its charter school cap, with around 285 currently in operation. To create a new school without exceeding the cap, Success Academy asked SUNY to transfer the charter of one of its existing schools to a newly created entity led by Grannis, Moskowitz’s husband. In the application, Moskowitz wrote that the school would operate independently of Success Academy with a separate board and distinct mission.
Last October, SUNY approved the transfer and forwarded it to the Board of Regents for review. In January, the Board of Regents voted to send the request back to SUNY and urged trustees to withdraw the approval, warning that it could violate state law. They argued that the request amounted to the creation of a new school without going through the proper approval process, circumventing the state’s charter cap.
“It seems like they just ignore what we have to say,” said Shino Tanikawa, a member of the Board of Regents. “We have educators and school leaders on the board, we are the educational management entity for the state, we know what we’re doing and we know when something isn’t right.”
Joseph Belluck, chair of SUNY’s Charter Schools Committee, said the committee always reviews the board’s comment, “but most of the time, it’s completely lacking in merit.”
He and Grannis maintain that Strive does not violate the law because they are not increasing the number of charter schools in the city; they are simply taking over an existing charter school and operating in the same building.
“We are trying to make it easier for people who want a good quality charter school education to get it by being more flexible,” he told New York Focus.
The school will open this fall with grades K–4. Grannis said the school has received about 270 applications and plans eventually to serve 540 students. It will operate on a year-round, flexible schedule from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week, with classes from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays from September to June and the extended hours offered as an option for families who want them.
Grannis said the school is already fully staffed with lead teachers, who will work weekdays year-round, and teaching assistants, who are not required to have a bachelor’s degree and will work roughly 50 hours per week to cover the extended schedule. The program is free for students, supported by funds from the city Department of Education for the school day and private philanthropy for the extended hours.
Union lawsuits and heated exchanges
In its lawsuit, filed last month, New York State United Teachers argues that SUNY’s approval of Strive Charter “disregards the plain purpose of the cap”and “wreaks havoc” on the city’s budget for traditional public schools. “We’ve tried to change the law, and now we’re going to the courts,” said NYSUT President Melinda Person.
Belluck, the SUNY Charter Schools Committee chair, said the lawsuit and the union’s push to take away SUNY’s authority over charter schools are an attempt to put “charter schools in New York out of business.”
“I don’t know if charter schools can save the educational system, but what I do know is that it’s grossly unfair to say to families and kids who have a shot at a free education that might be transformative for them and their families that they’re now not going to get that opportunity,” Belluck said.
Last month, a coalition of the state’s most powerful charter school founders and CEOs, including Moskowitz, sent a letter to State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa expressing concern about “the increasingly adversarial posture NYSED and the Board of Regents have taken” toward SUNY’s role as an independent charter school authorizer.
The letter boasted that SUNY-authorized schools consistently outperform both traditional public schools and charter schools authorized by the Board of Regents, and urged the state to recognize its “extraordinary record.”
In a June 29 response, NYSED counsel Daniel Morton-Bentley said the Regents only return applications for reconsideration when they raise concerns about potential legal issues. He also attached an appendix outlining concerns about the charter schools and networks that signed the letter, including high rates of student suspensions, persistent under-enrollment, a lack of certified teachers, and inadequate services for children with disabilities and English language learners.
Local school officials in the Hudson Valley and Long Island have also weighed in.
The Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents, which represents leaders of 78 school districts, has proposed an amendment to the state education law that would give the Board of Regents final authority to approve charter schools. It would also ensure that the fiscal impact on affected school districts is a critical consideration.
“Public schools are the absolute engine of a thriving democracy,” said Louis Wool, president of the organization and superintendent of Westchester County’s Harrison Central School District.
On Long Island, some local officials complain the growth of charters has strained the budget of traditional public schools.
In January, the teacher’s union joined local education and community partners in suing over SUNY’s approval of three new charter schools that the Board of Regents had objected to: The Academy Charter School Brentwood Elementary, The Academy Charter School Brentwood Middle, and the Academy Charter School Central Islip Regional High. The lawsuit, which is pending in Albany County Supreme Court, claims applications failed to address strong community opposition.
At a town hall last June hosted by Brentwood Union Free School District to discuss the new schools, former Hempstead school board president Victor Pratt said the district’s payments to charter schools grew from $9 million in 2009, when the area’s first Academy Charter School opened, to more than $107 million during the 2024–25 school year. The funding loss has left the district unable to address needs like air conditioning upgrades, he said. (Charter school advocates contend that per-pupil funding should follow the student rather than stay with the institution the student is no longer enrolled in.)
“Charter schools do not coexist with public schools, they operate at the expense of public schools” said Pratt.
State Assemblymember Phil Ramos, who represents Brentwood and Central Islip, called SUNY a “backdoor approval system” for charter schools that ignores overwhelming community opposition. He previously sponsored unsuccessful legislation that would have removed SUNY as an authorizer. This year, he introduced a billthat would require hearings and, outside New York City, a local vote before a charter school can be established, expanded, or renewed.
NYSUT supports the bill, which was also sponsored by Senate Education Chair Shelley Mayer but failed to advance out of committee in either chamber. Despite previous challenges passing charter school reform legislation, Mayer said she is optimistic that the state will heed public educators’ calls to strengthen communities’ ability to challenge charter school proposals because “there’s a serious movement of legislators who are very troubled by this process.”
“I think the pressure is on, and we’re moving toward some meaningful change,” she said.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
